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  Date / Time: 5/31/2009 9:28 AM UTC

  Self-righteous and lost
  

  A special girl on my high school basketball team was instrumental in leading me to the Lord. She was a sophomore playing varsity when I was a senior. Jeanette was a beautiful girl that came from a very large, very poor family. They lived in a little ghetto community (Hatcherville) outside of the main city. It was a community of all black, mostly migrant worker families. She was one of, I believe 14 children, and they all lived in a shabby little house about the size of a small garage. I would occasionally drive Jeanette home after a game or practice and I always felt so sad for the people of the community. They had to deal with prejudice people who put them down because they were black, but then also had the cycle of poverty that seemed to control their destiny and give them a hopeless existence. But one day Jeanette came to school and asked me if I saw a change in her. She was beaming and said "I got the Holy Ghost." She seemed so elated that it interested me. Being raised Catholic I was already religious and believed in God, but she seemed to have something I wasn't familiar with. From my perspective, I figured my being baptized and going to confession and communion and basically keeping the 10 commandments would eventually warrant my way into heaven. Being good and believing in God were the criteria for heaven (I thought.) However, no one ever told me that Jesus said "you MUST be born again to enter the kingdom of God" (John 3) so out of curiosity I started visiting her little Church (which was an old, dilapidated building about the size of a 2 car garage.) I saw something there I hadn't expected. There were just a few older people and even fewer younger people all from this community, but they had JOY. I couldn't figure out why they could be happy when their plight seemed so hopeless. But they had eternal faith in God and knew that this place here is just a dress rehearsal for our really living in heaven. I saw that God was a reality in their lives and I wanted that same reality in my life. I started attending their services and reading the Bible. They had certain regulations about dress (women shouldn't wear pants or jewelry), and so I started abiding by their rules. I worked hard at being righteous. I finally got to the place by my religious good works that I considered myself "saved." This was during the 70's when the drug culture was at a high (no pun intended), and certain of my brothers and sisters were into the partying lifestyle. I indignantly turned my nose up at the wicked lifestyles of my "sinner" siblings. Then God sent a rather unpopular girl across my path. I didn't deal with her much during the school year, but she needed a place to stay a few weeks and ended up at our house. She was a Baptist girl who took me at my word that I was saved. However in the ensuing days she observed my holier than thou attitude toward my family. She took me aside and told me that she had prayed about something and had something very serious to tell me. I could tell she was hesitant, but I believed God had a message for me through her. She said, "Ann, I don't really want to tell you this, but your attitude STINKS!  That hit my self-righteous, religious attitude with a spiritual 2 by 4 in the head and finally woke me up spiritually. God saw me as I was (a filthy sinner with impure, self-exalting motives, trying to be holy on my own.) He made it very real to me that He saw me as that hypocritical Pharisee standing in the temple condemning the sinner when I was in much worse shape spiritually than any of my brothers or sisters. "You hypocrite, why do you try to take a splinter out of your brother's eye when you have a log in your own eye." He let me know that I could not stand in His holy presence by my righteousness (which was like filthy rags), and that I deserved hell. He showed me that my self-righteous attitude toward my family was worse than being a murderer, because a murderer only kills the body. I was actually responsible for killing them spiritually by misrepresenting Christ to them. He didn't come to condemn the world but to save them, but I was turning them away from religion by my condemning attitude.

  I finally truly repented, acknowledged I was a sinner and could not save myself, and was truly worthy of hell. By His grace He saved me and gave me the GIFT of salvation [I didn't have to work for it!] and let me know that it's "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by His grace [undeserved, unmerited favor] He saved me. Obviously after we are saved out of gratitude for what Christ has done for us we should not willfully continue in sin. But we should never look to our own righteousness a means for being justified before God. We can only stand before God pure and clean because of the Blood of Jesus that "cleanses from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:7-9) I had the reality of truly being born again and the joy of knowing I was going to heaven. I used to bother my Mother because I would subconsciously be humming and happy inside while she was talking to me, thinking I was ignoring her with humming (I didn't realize I was doing it.) Through the years there have been many times that circumstances seemingly should have robbed me of all peace and joy in my living. But like the people at Jeanette's Church, I have had the peace to know that what we see here is just temporary. Our real existence is eternal and God Almighty controls our destiny. 
  
  So, my confession as a Christian of 31 years is that Jesus Christ Himself is my righteousness.  He is the way, the Truth and the life.  Without Him I can do nothing, but with Him, I can do all things.  Make that your confession today!

                                             

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